Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said Monday he would attack Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons or to respond to aggression against Israel.

Asked if he agreed with former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton’s contention that the “only realistic alternative … is to use force preemptively against Iran’s nuclear weapons program” since diplomacy has failed, Mr. Cain said he did, with one caveat.

“There would be some other pieces of information I would need before I gave that order, but I’m saying that would be Option B,” Mr. Cain said during an interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.

“Option A is, ‘Folks, we are not going to allow you to attack Israel‘ … If they call my bluff, they already know — they will know — what Option B is.”

Mr. Cain said that, as commander-in-chief, he would “make it crystal clear [that] if you mess with Israel, you’re messing with the United States of America,” but stressed that his “Cain Doctrine” would not be a “blank check” for Israeli military action.

“There will be a set of conditions and circumstances that I will work with Israel on for them to understand that they cannot abuse that doctrine,” said Mr. Cain, a former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza.
However, if Israel is ever attacked first by Iran, he said he is “not going to sit back and get a vote from the United Nations as to what we ought to do.”

“If they [Iran] start lobbing rockets and stuff over at Israel, then we’re going to shoot back with Israel,” he said.

Mr. Cain dismissed the notion that an attack on Iran is unrealistic: “First of all, we have the most capable military power in the world,” he said. “Air, ground — although we won’t have to use ground for this — submarines, ships, that would be strategically placed in that part of the world.”

Mr. Cain has questioned President Obama’s commitment to the Jewish state, saying during his candidacy announcement that Mr. Obama had thrown “Israel under the bus” by calling for negotiations with the Palestinians to be based on Israel’s borders before the 1967 war.

“The problem we have today is that, I believe, that [Iran] would test this president’s intention to help protect Israel,” he said.

Cain’s position would be a first for any United States president, and certainly the first time that this stance would be official policy. Which would of course go against the position of the State Dept., the CIA, and parts of the U.S. military which are Arabist. Cain would give truth to the lie that America is a friend of Israel. So far, it’s been such in a purely Kavorkian sense of the term.

“Herman Cain Says U.S. Communities ‘Have the Right’ to Ban Mosques,” from FoxNews.com, July 17 (thanks to Rand):

Presidential candidate Herman Cain on Sunday defended his opposition to a new mosque in Tennessee, expressing concern about Shariah law and declaring Americans “have the right” to ban mosques in their communities.

Cain, who stirred controversy this year by saying he would be uncomfortable appointing a Muslim to his Cabinet if elected, first expressed concern Thursday about the controversial mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn. That mosque has been the subject of demonstrations and legal challenges in the wake of the controversy over the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” in New York City.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Cain said he came out against the Tennessee mosque after talking to members of that community. He said the site is “hallowed ground” to Murfreesboro residents and that they’re concerned about “the intentions of trying to get Shariah law” — the code governing conduct in Islamic societies.

“It’s not just a mosque for religious purposes. This is what the people are objecting to,” he said.

Asked whether any community should be able to prohibit a mosque, Cain said they should.

“They have the right to do that. That’s not discriminating … against that particular religion. That is an aspect of them building that mosque that doesn’t get talked about,” he said.

Cain again argued that residents were objecting to “the fact that Islam is both a religion and a set of laws, Shariah law. That’s the difference between any one of our other traditional religions.”

But while Cain said he expects the case to come before the Supreme Court, a local judge has allowed the project to go forward.

Cain is taking heat for his comments about Muslims. The [Hamas-linked] Council on American-Islamic Relations, which accused him of using “bigoted” language with his Cabinet comments, said Sunday that he should “apologize” for his latest remarks. […]